1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a casing for housing a recording medium and a printing method for forming printing on the casing. More particularly, the present invention relates to a casing for housing the recording medium bearing a printing on its outer surface and a method for making a printing on the outer surface of the casing.
2. Background of the Invention
A casing for housing a recording medium, such as a disc cartridge containing an optical disc or a magneto-optical disc, or a tape cassette containing such as a magnetic tape, usually is provided with printing is made of a so-called logo-mark for indicating that the product is made by a particular company, or various designs for enhancing the commercial value of the product. Such printing on the casing for the recording medium is usually performed in the following manner.
First, a manuscript having the design drawn thereon for printing on the casing is color-separated by a color CCD scanner. Positive color films associated with the separated colors and then the master plates for the respective colors are prepared. After calibration, test printing is made on a cassette and adjustment is made of the ink viscosity. Then, after registration of the color master plates, printing is formed on the casing.
Meanwhile, the picture pattern printed on the outer surface of the casing for the recording medium is supplied from the manufacturer, while there is no room for an ultimate or end user or an intermediate user to make his or her original design.
Thus, the casing cannot be adapted to cope with the demand raised by the ultimate user or the intermediate user for printing desired pictures or designs for presentation or publicity, so that the application of the casing cannot be enlarged as desired. Besides, the paper index or paper label as used heretofore is not satisfactory for presentation or publicity in view of permanent storage and product quality. On the other hand until now, there has been a lack of a container casing for a recording medium in which a picture pattern such as a logo-mark (ornamental design letter), or a variety of designs intended for raising the commercial value of the product, or showing features of the recording contents recorded on the recording medium, and an index for adding the title, logo or characters for event holding by the intermediate user, have been combined into one printing pattern.